I would say you are right.

Had I won the mega millions I'd be interested.



It'd be fun to go do pattern work at my old work and drive my friends nuts

Not bad $27,000 a month.

If we can find 15,000 guys to chip in $2 a month.

F-84

I mean yes and no.

What most people fail to realize is the actual context the mig29 was designed to be used in versus nato fighters.

Imagine the 1980's. NATO has SARH missiles like the Aim-7 and shorter range missiles like the IR Aim-9 series. The baddest fighter in the sky is the F15. But there were a ton of less capable fighters, F16's, F4's hell even ancient F104's.

Now, lets look at how the soviets intended to deal with that threat.

The soviets were "Economical", cheap if you want to use the other word. So, all their expensive electronic shit tended to be on the ground handled by a handful of experts. I.e. Ground Control Intercept officers, and in the broader context of their SAM network, or IADS (Integrated Air Defense System). So, while the F15 for example had a big fancy and expensive radar and a big fancy EW suite, in the soviet system that sat well defended on the ground. The way it was intended to work was simple. Mr. Mig29 with his radar off, was vectored to a favorable intercept position to the F15, and Mr. F15 never saw him coming coming until it was too late. Mr. Mig29 turned his radar on at the last possible second, locked up Mr. F15 and fired his own SARH missile. If it actually got to the merge, the mig29 was kinematically better than the F15 or 16, and had the further advantage of an off boresight HOBS missile that in post cold war tests proved scarily effective against F16's that fought it. Add in the fact there were 4 or more mig29's per NATO fighter and then it gets even worse.

BUT...

Most nations that actually used the mig29 and fought the USA... Didn't have a useful IADS system, or if they did it was dismantled overnight on day's 1-3 of the air war. So the fighters were mostly useless since they lacked that critical GCI/IADS component. And moreover, instead of having an numerical superiority vs US fighters it was more like 10:1 against them.

And so they got their asses handed to them, time and time and time again. But it had little to do with the fighter, and more to do with the much larger system they had not working like it was intended, while the US systems worked as designed.

So, in a modern context, a mig29 or 35 as they are known now is a much closer comparison to western fighters since they adopted the western philosophy of putting good avionics in the bird instead of the ground.

But put an 80's era falcon or even eagle up against a 80's era 29 in WVR fight, and its probably gonna the migs way, since that was largely what it was built to do. Fast forward to the 90's and AAMRAM days, and it looks very different.

I wonder if the civ owners have read the RhAF maintenace tips and tricks that enabled them to be flown for like 1/10th the maintenance costs.

I am not.

When you and your buddies have far too much money to buy Harleys and join the local motorcycle club...

The only thing I’m qualified to do is guard it.
Sure would like a ride though.

Didn't know all of that. Thanks.

Yeah, but Chicks would dig it in your hangar.

Well, mine was just painted in a colorful Hawaiian floral pattern, so...

That plane crashed in WI in 2018, killed the pilot/owner and now the museum is closing down..

Depends. You up to FAA regs or sovietsky regs?

Most of the cold war needs to be looked at in that context. Individually most western systems were kind sorta better depending on what you look at, but Soviet stuff was meant to be used in different ways. Tanks were a similar story, guns were fine, speed was great, armor was ok. Crew comort lol, reliability good enough for a few hundred
miles/a few days, fine cuz the chances that any given tank would survive long enough were basically 0, but you had enough for a second wave, and a third and a fourth etc.

And once you take the soviet stuff out of context it performs way way worse.

Sad

Harlikwin's posts are always worth the time to read.

Would the term cockpit become Vagina Vestibule for the movie do ya think?

Hornets vs Fulcrums


Aside from imagining how fun it would be to do opposite direction pattern work in a large aircraft to annoy my friends I've been trying to find interviews I've read from US pilots that went to Germany to play with East German Fulcrums after unification

As you know, Soviet-era armor was nothing to laugh at.  It wasn't until the Abrams was fielded in the early 1980s that US tank crews could even think about living through the first hours of an invasion by Soviet / WP forces into W Germany.  

Our AH-1s and A-10s would have been slaughtered in wholesale lots by Soviet ZSU-23-4s.  In the meantime, we struggled (and failed) to field the M247 DIVAD and couldn't even get that right.

There is also a great article from a USAF exchange officer that flew vipers that did an exchange with that squad. Also US viper squads that flew against them in the early ops got their asses handed to them WVR and easily won with BVR aamrams.

So circa mid 80s... Bad days for the USAF. Mid 90s onward easy days.

I’d consider buying it if someone could cover the maintenance and fuel...

Yeah, the T72, Hind, ZSU, and Migs were very scary in their day.

Plus Russia always had the more is better mentality.

Add in their blanket of anti air missiles and it would have been a knock down brawl.

But thankfully nukes kept everything civil.

That's one I was thinking of and another one by David Cenciotti describing those early days.


I think the Mig-29 is a good looking plane and made sure to get some pics with the one at NAS Fallon

Yeah, US ADA efforts weren't great, but at least the Chapperal was a thing along with the Vulcan. But the US army mostly had to buy the idea that the USAF would have air superiority. The rest of Nato was in a worse boat, but at least some of Ze Germanz in charge were old enough to remember "promises" like that, and the Bundesheer at least had some decent SHORADs with the Roland and Gepard systems. So at the end of the day I don't think there would have been all that easy for the Soviets either.

I mean, nukes would have flown from the first minutes, regardless of the decade. Every source I've read basically says that, so... Yes civil, but if it had gone hot, not so civil.

That site is warbird porn.

Now I wish I played the lottery so I could buy an airport and hangers for my new collection.